And now for something completely different (Keyboard Option)


ZXDunny said:
Shenmue said:
Oh boy!  I hope Ed wouldn't take any of these keyboard design.
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I shouldn't worry if I were you. A guy called Cosurgi tried the exact same thing back when the Pandora was in development - opened lots of threads, obsessed about keyboard layouts... and was completely ignored by OPT.


Can't see this going any differently, tbh.


D.
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Completely huh? Even Eeyore didn't give up that easy.  :p  

Pandora layout is here for the uninitiated and Cosurgi's WIP is below. Grabbed the pic from this thread btw.

cosurgi_final.png
 
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It struck me that by arranging the Fn keys as a section on the left, numbers on a section on the right I could shift the QWERTYUIOP row up one and allow symbols to flow in around and between - which allowed the symbols between to be made up of related sets.

On the embedded number pad - yes I did them like a phone on purpose.  There is a clear stated idea for the Pyra to have phone capabilities.  When dialing with one thumb, most people are 'more used' to the phone layout.  Personally, I would prefer a standard computer 10 key.  Either one would get across the main ideas of this layout.  It's on the right side to follow 90% of the population - sorry lefties.  The important part at this stage is the overall concept - not which direction the keys run in the keypad.

Is what I put up a finalized keyboard in a can?  Not even close.  It was built on the fly with no real thought given to testing.  That could come later if people decide to embrace the overall layout concept.

Several people seem to be freaked out about the 4+shift4 = 8 German key labels I put in.  I already had more symbols on the keyboard than there are in a standard 105 type - and had 8 left over.  There was talk that ED would like easier German accessibility, so I threw those in there.  It wasn't meant to be offensive.  I don't even speak German.

So - what this is really about is the concepts of:

1.  Moving the QWERTYIOP row up to the top.

2.  Embedding the F1-F12 keys off to the left side to become their own 'keypad'.

3.  Embedding a numeric keypad (Phone or computer style TBD) on the right.

4.  Pairing like symbols together - then centering those pairs in a column so they're all easily found.

5.  Grouping like-kinds together, .°. (period, degrees mark, Pyra-shifted period for numeric pad) on one key - which if it weren't for copyright's I'd want to connect with thin lines to make the Stargate Earth origin address symbol.  ' " ` became one column - find any of the 3 and you've found them all.  There are lots of examples of this, l | ! for example.  ? ! . are all near each other.

So the basis for this is classification of symbols by type and arranging them in a way that suits symbol types or types of actions.

I had considered moving all of the vowels into one corner then sharp and soft consonants around - but that wouldn't hold up to international use and QWERTY is so ubiquitous that it would be pointless to pursue that side of it.

So - on a conceptual basis is this something worth pursuing?
 
Kiga said:
_wb_ said:
Why are you all using a phone numpad (123 456 789 0) instead of a normal computer numpad (789 456 123 0) ?

Anyway, I don't thing either kind of numpad works well in a staggered layout.

Also, F-keys in four groups of three looks weird to me. Normal keyboards have three groups of four.
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Left it as Grench made it, no matter anyway. I made some improvements.

_wb_ said:
Having all of the shifted number row symbols !@#$%^&*() in non-standard places makes it hard to find symbols.
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Pretty easy to remember:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/2655cbd7903684773b4e99be39620e13

faZrv9X.png


A row number is useless IMO and a numpad is useful especially for those who want to use it as a phone. Also it looks better with a small orange symbols on each keys than on only few keys.
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I like where you're going with it.  I'd be a bit more careful with the keypad area.  + and - and . are now non-Fn shifted which looses them to the 'calculator' function on the keypad.  If you back up a bit and give careful consideration to the duplication that I have on the keyboard, it may start to make more sense.  My . key is still a . whether function shifted or not - and yields the degrees symbol under normal shift.  I.e. worked the same in keyboard or keypad mode - that was intentional for functionality.

Some keys belong in more than one logical group after all.

Very cool concepts on the lower left side though - thank you.  

Everyone feel free to carry on using whatever you like from this example.  I know it's weird - but look closely and you should find a fair amount of logic in the nestings of keys.
 
Grench said:
I like where you're going with it.  I'd be a bit more careful with the keypad area.  + and - and . are now non-Fn shifted which looses them to the 'calculator' function on the keypad.  If you back up a bit and give careful consideration to the duplication that I have on the keyboard, it may start to make more sense.  My . key is still a . whether function shifted or not - and yields the degrees symbol under normal shift.  I.e. worked the same in keyboard or keypad mode - that was intentional for functionality.
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I noticed that it was intentional and hesitate before making that choice,  - and + was in orange in my first version but I choose to make it like that after _wb_ complained about - as orange and keys like # with dedicated keys, so modified it because anyway as I chose to make the space wider there is inevitably one math symbol which have to be white if you want to keep them all in that zone.

I though about puttin the space bar at left but I was lazy and I don't know if ED could accept to move it.
 
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Grench said:
I still wish we knew for certain whether or not the space bar is going to be double-wide

http://www.amazon.com/Doublewide-Live-Southern-Culture-Skids/dp/B000EHQUSA

or singles

http://www.amazon.com/White-T-Vinyl-Southern-Culture/dp/B00004XU2S

Sorry - every time I hear 'double wide' with reference to the space bar I start thinking of SCOTS.

So - do we have one key or two keys where the original mold has the big space bar key?
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I don't think ED made up his mind yet; the PCB allows two different keys to be there and it's not a big change to the case/keymat design, so both are still possible I guess.
 
Kiga said:
Here is a version with space bar at left and a full numpad in orange: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/c6090ca0280cb61ba2892a57985bd525

Space bar at right a bit improved: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/e507964b30e8d161f0421fe38934a5f9
Click to expand...
The unshifted + and - need to be a part of the number board if we want to be able to do math and not just algebra.

In fact, 1234567890.+-*/^()= and Enter should all be available without changing the keyboard shift/Fn level.  Think basic calculator set.  I'm still torn between the phone layout 123 at top and keyboard layout 789 at top.  I prefer HP calculators.  To others phone number pad is more important and they'll want that spatial relationship.  Since the Pyra is also a phone, I can see leaning that way as the calculator is a secondary function.  Either way, having + and - as unshifted main keys away from the numbers is a bit silly - unless your preference is algebra with no numerics.

F1-F4, F5-F8, F9-F12 as 3 sets of 4 instead of 4 sets of 3 is fine - works better that way in fact.  Nicely done.

Just for entertainment, we should all put the label 'ANY' on the wide space bar in giant orange capital letters in any layout that has a wide space bar.

"See - this thing rules! It even has an ANY key!"
 
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Grench said:
Just for entertainment, we should all put the label 'ANY' on the wide space bar in giant orange capital letters in any layout that has a wide space bar.  

"See - this thing rules! It even has an ANY key!"
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Definitely!
 
hehe I saw somebody in the train yesterday who had a tablet with a keyboard hooked to it. And she was telling her girlfriend how great a keyboard was and so usefull, she called it a great invention. She ment an invention for a tablet, she litterally saw it as an recent innovation... It's funny how quick people forget stuff. 

When she said this I happend to be playing my pandora, So I had to smile when she was saying it, then ofcourse as it should be she looked my way in a way that could say "Oh my god I pity the person that is such a nerd playing a game on such a non-conformative device".
 
Grench said:
The unshifted + and - need to be a part of the number board if we want to be able to do math and not just algebra.
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+ and - is part of the number board on the left space layout, ( ) is needed indeed but it's useful in normal using too (can be switched with another parenthese but it will be useless in a normal board)

Anyway it can probably be improved, if ED choose it he will find his best layout

_wb_ said:
Any particular reason why you wonder about that?
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I am wary of keys like enter and space with another label and if ED chose a wide space this layout is dead.
 
I agree that the double-wide trailer space bar works better in the middle than it does on the far right side - makes more sense.

Of course the same effect could be had by having single-button keys all around and making those two lower center buttons both space - effectively a left space and a right space - which would be kind of cool in a nerdy way if you think about it.
 
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